


some heart, some sunrise

by lovingness



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28273950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovingness/pseuds/lovingness
Summary: Kiyoomi, sitting on the floor of his dim, just-leased Tokyo apartment surrounded by paperwork and workout regimes and nutrition plans he’s supposed to follow until the Olympics, feels horribly, horribly lonely. Barely-there moonlight and almost-morning creeping in through the balcony doors, casting shadows onto all the paper and books.And he wonders if Wakatoshi feels the same way.Across the room on Kiyoomi’s futon, his phone silently lights up.
Relationships: Sakusa Kiyoomi/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 49





	some heart, some sunrise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toge/gifts).



> merry christmas kira baby <3

4:50 AM.

Five hours until Wakatoshi-kun’s flight leaves for California.

Five hours until three months of knowing that Wakatoshi is 7000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. That he’s in a different country, hell, a different fucking _time zone_. That he’s successfully separated himself so much from everyone else. Like he always has. 

Kiyoomi, sitting on the floor of his dim, just-leased Tokyo apartment surrounded by paperwork and workout regimes and nutrition plans he’s supposed to follow until the Olympics, feels horribly, horribly lonely. Barely-there moonlight and almost-morning creeping in through the balcony doors, casting shadows onto all the paper and books. 

And he wonders if Wakatoshi feels the same way. 

Across the room on Kiyoomi’s futon, his phone silently lights up.

_Kiyoomi, eighteen, sits quietly in his bed the night after he graduates. Too burned out from the ceremony and seeing family he passed out, still-dressed, after dinner; waking up, bleary-eyed and confused and an hour until midnight, was not how he anticipated spending his night._

_Now, sitting up against his pillows, eyes wide and glued to the shadowy wall, he doesn’t think he could fall asleep if someone paid him. He’d already tried all the usual remedies: warm shower, fresh clothes, lavender and vanilla hand lotion, hot tea. Yet, nothing; no sign of drowsiness or even slight tiredness._

_And strangely enough, from across the room, his phone has lit up and gone dark three times in the past minute._

_He folds the covers to slide out of bed in just his t-shirt and shorts, and he reaches for his phone on his desk as soon as the screen starts to go dark. He has a missed call from one minute ago and two messages. All from the same person._

One missed call from Wakatoshi-kun :).

Two new messages from Wakatoshi-kun :).

“Meet me out in front of yours in twenty minutes?”

“Wakatoshi.”

_And,_ oh _. Kiyoomi lights up, all the way out from his chest. Enough to fill the whole dark room he’s standing in._

Deja vu. His phone on the futon and the way his phone had been on the desk. Kiyoomi marvels at sitting in his apartment, three months from the goddamn Olympics, and still feeling like he’s in high school again.

He supposes, though, that former lovers will do that to you. Hold you in the past until you or they gain enough courage to let go. Rarely does either person want to move on; not without the other, at least. 

(Nineteen hours earlier.

For the most part, the 10:00 AM press conference Kiyoomi has to sit through with the rest of the Olympic team is surprisingly tolerable. There’s still a fair crowd of reporters and people holding cameras and microphones, the barely-there foreheads and tops of their heads visible from where Kiyoomi is seated with the team up front. Frankly, he hadn’t had much time to see anyone since being selected for the team with his nutritionist and personal trainer up his ass every second of every day. So, yes, Kiyoomi can appreciate seeing his MSBY teammates again since he'd decided to move back to Tokyo and remembering old competitors from high school that are now on his side of the net.

He sits back a little in his seat and reaches for the styrofoam cup of lukewarm water by his name tag. Kiyoomi had already been asked what his plans were for the break all of them are getting before training starts; he’s staying in Tokyo to be with family and to train as an individual with guided nutrition and workout regimes from his trainers. He’s anticipating a lot of sleep and alone time, two things he hasn’t been afforded a lot of since joining MSBY. 

A reporter raises her hand from the crowd and asks, “Ushijima-san, how will you be spending your three-month break before official team training starts?” A synchronized ripple of heads turn in his direction, Kiyoomi’s included. He does, however, have to look around Atsumu who is seated between them.

Wakatoshi smiles a little, leaning forward to his mic. “I’m flying out to California tomorrow morning to train and work with my father. My- _hah_ , nutritionist and personal trainer are going to get very good at making video calls.” A polite laugh from the heads.

Kiyoomi has half a mind to swallow the water in his mouth before he hastily sets the cup down, doubling over in a coughing fit. He can feel Atsumu’s hand on his back and, surely, the hundreds of eyes that are on him now. Maybe Wakatoshi’s.

Still, the rest of the water in Kiyoomi’s cup does nothing to soothe the sudden lump of frustration stuck in the back of his throat. A persistent reminder that everything’s still the way it was seven years ago.

At least for Kiyoomi. He won’t assume Wakatoshi feels the same.)

He stands outside on the sidewalk in joggers and an oversized sweatshirt, the barely-there light of the coming sunrise not enough to warm him from the morning chilliness. Kiyoomi thinks about how absurd he must look, waiting for Wakatoshi to pick him up. Take him wherever he plans to take him. If Kiyoomi were watching a horror movie this would be the point at which he’d begin seething in the direction of his TV, silently willing the main character a gruesome death just because they were stupid to get in a car at 5:00 AM with _anybody_ -

Just as that thought passes through his sleep-deprived mind, Kiyoomi nearly jumps five feet in the air when a stray cat chooses to nuzzle up against his leg. The cat’s brown and lanky, head right up against Kiyoomi’s calf. 

Not five seconds later does a car slowly pull up to the curb; the cat scrambles away somewhere behind Kiyoomi as he walks forward, dazed, to grab the car’s passenger side door handle. 

Wakatoshi beats him to it, though, and the door opens in front of Kiyoomi showing him that Wakatoshi’s leaned across the passenger seat. _Like a gentleman_ , Kiyoomi thinks as he watches Wakatoshi smile softly at him. Familiar.

_Kiyoomi sneaks out of the house, past the clean kitchen from dinner, down the creaky hallway and entryway to slip his sneakers on and wait for Wakatoshi. He wonders if Wakatoshi planned this, if he knew Kiyoomi would be sleepless the night after graduation. For someone who seems like he’s constantly wearing horse blinders that tunnel his vision onto everything related to volleyball, Kiyoomi would tell you that Wakatoshi is more observant than most anyone else he knows._

_So, Kiyoomi decides as his cheeks heat up with the night chill, maybe Wakatoshi did plan this. Maybe his boyfriend did sit down, hell, could’ve even asked his teammates what to do for Kiyoomi’s graduation night. The last send-off for him before he starts college._

(Aimlessly, Kiyoomi remembers Wakatoshi’s graduation. He’d already been offered and accepted a spot as the Adlers’ wing spiker a few months prior, and a few months prior was also when he and Kiyoomi had started dating. 

They hadn’t seen each other, really, since then; it was a midnight, hushed voices video call where Wakatoshi had quietly asked if Kiyoomi would be his boyfriend. If him being in Tokyo soon, baby, soon would make it all easier. And Kiyoomi’d replied shakily, yes, it would be easier. And he’d like that. 

Walking up to Wakatoshi after his graduation ceremony, a small bundle of peonies in his hands, Kiyoomi told him the same thing. Teary eyes buried in Wakatoshi’s shoulder and the flowers smashed between them, Kiyoomi’d whispered _I can’t wait for you any longer. I miss you. I miss you._

And returned, his voice murmuring, Wakatoshi’d said _I miss you, too. I’ll see you soon_.)

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Wakatoshi says as soon as Kiyoomi is seated and buckled in. He pulls away from the curb and lazily keeps one hand on the steering wheel, the other rested on his thigh. “I felt like you’d be awake and- I needed some fresh air before I get stuffed into a plane cabin for twelve hours. Flights this long are never easy.”

Kiyoomi’s hands are clammy in his lap, but he looks over, still. “I’m glad- if I’m one of the last people you’d want to see before leaving for three months.”

_I didn’t think we’d ever see each other again. Not like this._

The sun still hasn’t come up over the horizon line, but Kiyoomi can see the sky starting to lighten in the direction of wherever Wakatoshi is taking them. A washed-out, muted dark blue that pales around the skyline and silhouette of rising buildings. 

Wakatoshi drives in silence for a moment longer. 

Kiyoomi glances over at him, and then at the console. “Your flight leaves at 10:00, right? Don’t you need more time to-”

“I’m already packed, Kiyoomi, and I can spare an hour.” He turns left, hands relaxing again before he looks at Kiyoomi and back at the road. “Please don’t let that worry you.”

Embarrassed, Kiyoomi stares at his lap. Hands fidgeting. “I apologize.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Wakatoshi replies almost immediately. His head whips to the side as soon as Kiyoomi looks back up at him and- their faces are both red. Flushed, Kiyoomi’s tongue feels heavy, dry in his mouth.

Wakatoshi’s lips part, his eyes scanning Kiyoomi’s face. His burning face. The face that he stares at for a second longer before his attention is back on the road, sighing. “Don’t be sorry, Kiyoomi.”

He swallows. “Okay, Wakatoshi.” Slowly, Kiyoomi takes his shaky hands and carefully edges his mask off of his face, the warmth beginning to make him uncomfortable. The heat in the car that he swears wasn’t so stifling thirty seconds ago. Maybe he’s imagining things.

They drive towards an exit ramp, Wakatoshi turning right in the opposite direction of the road that Kiyoomi knows would take them back to the city. He remembers, distantly, Wakatoshi mentioning in an interview Kiyoomi had read that he spends a lot of time driving on the outer edges of Tokyo. Said that it reminds him of growing up in Miyagi and running laps around the same convenience stores, the same houses with the same people he’d known his whole life. 

_The surprise graduation send-off is Wakatoshi driving Kiyoomi out on the outskirts of Tokyo, to the furthest edges of a farm that’s bracketed on all sides by an old dirt backroad. “Stargazing,” he’d said simply when they’d pulled away from Kiyoomi’s house. “Something I do when I’m feeling sentimental. Sometimes homesick.”_

_Kiyoomi helps him spread a blanket from the back of Wakatoshi’s car on the grassy field that rolls down into rice paddies, trees and tilled dirt waiting to be made useful. The light pollution still pervades the way it does closer to the city, but the pitch blackness and quiet make Kiyoomi feel like the stars are all closer to them somehow. Everything feels closer out here._

_Wakatoshi lies down first, props himself half-up on his elbows so Kiyoomi can lay his head in his lap and stretch his legs out long in front. Soon, though, Wakatoshi lays all the way on his back with one arm behind his head and the other hand in Kiyoomi’s hair; he points out constellations and laughs at Kiyoomi turning his head to see them the same direction Wakatoshi does._

“This road seems familiar,” Kiyoomi murmurs.

Wakatoshi keeps driving.

“There’s a farm out here,” Kiyoomi continues, pressing Wakatoshi’s buttons a little bit more. 

Wakatoshi hums. “Yes. I like it out here, especially at night. But the sunrises are beautiful, too. It feels- appropriate.”

Kiyoomi nods, and stays quiet right up until they reach the field that sees itself all the way down to the crops. The same paddies, trees, upturned dirt waiting for attention. 

They both know the last time they were here. How it ended, and how they hadn’t returned since. Maybe, Kiyoomi thinks, Wakatoshi’s just trying to reset everything for himself before he leaves. Before the Olympics. And if he takes Kiyoomi along with him, well, he supposes it’s only fair. 

(He’d never tell Wakatoshi, still hasn’t, that the night he was accepted onto MSBY he went out to this same road. And he stared up, curled into a ball in the front seat of his car, letting whatever song was on the radio play while he imagined there was someone in the passenger seat.

It’d been rainy. Suffocating in the cramped vehicle. 

Kiyoomi, though, couldn’t help but stand in the downpour for a few moments. If only, he justified to himself, to stare up and see if any stars were peeking through the cloud cover. If they were as close to him tonight as they were a few years ago.)

_Eventually, their words become fewer and sweeter; Kiyoomi, finally sleepy after being awake all night, turns his face into Wakatoshi’s stomach and murmurs something muffled. Wakatoshi hums, hand brushing Kiyoomi’s bangs out of his face._

_Kiyoomi mumbles. “D’you think this is going to last forever?”_

_Wakatoshi’s chest tightens, and his stomach rises and falls slowly before he responds. “I don’t- know.”_

_“I want it to- if you want it to.” Kiyoomi turns his face back upwards, towards the stars. Voice quiet. “I want you.”_

_Pause. “I know. But, I- think about the future sometimes, and where we’ll be in a year. Two years. Ten.” Wakatoshi starts combing through Kiyoomi’s hair again. “I don’t want to hold you back just because- of this. Of us.”_

_Kiyoomi frowns. “You’re not holding me back.”_

_“If you had no other reason to stay in Tokyo besides me- if your family wasn’t here, would you stay?”_

_“I don’t- know. You’re being hypothetical.”_

_“Sorry. I’m sorry.”_

_Kiyoomi sits up abruptly, hugging his knees into his chest facing away from Wakatoshi. “I don’t know.” His stomach aches. “I just know that I like you and- Tokyo is home and now that you’re here I don’t have a reason to go anywhere else. Not right now.”_

_An unspoken question._ But would you follow him anywhere?

_He can feel Wakatoshi sit up on the blanket close behind him, the material scrunching underneath his body. Wakatoshi scoots over to sit beside him, wrap an arm around his shoulder and pull him in close._

_“Kiyoomi,” Wakatoshi starts, slowly, “I never wanted to hold you back.” The hand around Kiyoomi’s shoulder moves in a rhythmic motion, fingers tracing circles into his jacket. “I don’t want you to go through college with me on your shoulder. You’re- there’s something about you that’s so much greater than me. Than anyone.”_

_He pauses. Kiyoomi keeps his eyes focused on the ground, head still tucked into his knees. “You’ve been special since I met you, and since I graduated, and- and I don’t want to be what keeps you from being everything you should._

_“I’ve never- done this with anyone. Been so close with anyone besides you. But maybe, maybe it’s a good idea to take a break. From us.”_

(Seeing Wakatoshi on the court again was not something Kiyoomi could even begin to prepare himself for. Because it’s May of 2018 and he hadn’t seen Wakatoshi since before he started college and they’d barely exchanged anything more than niceties since then when they absolutely couldn’t avoid each other and- 

Kiyoomi takes a deep breath, and he shuts his eyes. Listens to his teammates behind him, all yelling things probably profane and stupid and endearing all at once. And he thinks of his college team and being MVP and being here _now_ , in this place. The Kurowashiki All-Japan Tournament.

Thinks of making Wakatoshi acknowledge everything Kiyoomi did- has done since graduating high school. That’s all he’s here to do. That’s all Wakatoshi _wanted_ him to do was to be proud of himself, right?

Across the net, right before the first serve goes up, Kiyoomi and Wakatoshi make brief eye contact. Adrenaline bubbles up into Kiyoomi’s chest and he stares, rereading the number and the team name on Wakatoshi’s jersey. 

Eye contact once more, and Kiyoomi’s gaze softens at Wakatoshi smiling gently back at him. Back at him, because Kiyoomi’s lips had begun to curl into his own smile of their own accord. 

As if he were saying, _I'm proud of me, now. Be proud with me._

But the net remains, and the referee’s whistle blows shrill into the air, and the moment ends as soon as Kiyoomi had a chance to acknowledge it.)

Kiyoomi searches through the catalog of Ushijima Wakatoshi that exists in his mind as they drive closer and closer to the spot. He thinks about the interview, and the way he apparently spends time driving circles around Tokyo. There’s another interview, Kiyoomi remembers, where he’d talked about California.

How he’d said something along the lines of wishing he could take his teammates with him someday. That California is home like Tokyo is home, but not like Miyagi is home. And that- for Wakatoshi, he lets people define what a place is to him more than anything else. Tokyo is home because the Adlers are, and California is home because his father’s there.

But Kiyoomi’s always known that, what with the way Wakatoshi had talked about getting to go to California again after high school. And the way he’d talked about Miyagi when they were at training camps together in Tokyo. Wakatoshi finds home in- well, not in places, but in-

The car jerking to a stop shakes Kiyoomi out of his thoughts.

(Kiyoomi's team loses to the Adlers. Badly.

Neither of the two of them makes an effort to talk after the match.)

_Blinking rapidly, Kiyoomi keeps staring down at the blanket._

_“Kiyoomi, please say something.”_

_Cotton in his ears. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”_

_Breath. “I want to hear from you.” Deep breath. “Just you.”_

_Kiyoomi wonders if everything feels darker around them all of a sudden, Or if he’s imagining things and nothing’s changed at all. He thought that Wakatoshi leaving would ruin him all at once, that the realization he doesn’t want Kiyoomi right now or ever again would be more emotional, if anything. That Kiyoomi would be crying and heaving, feeling like a part of him was ripped out of his body. His heart, maybe._

_All he can manage, though, is a simple, “Maybe you’re right.”_

_Wakatoshi squeezes his shoulder one more time and,_ oh. _There’s the break._

(He doesn’t think of Wakatoshi all the time, and he hopes Wakatoshi doesn’t always think of him. But there’s a small part of Kiyoomi that misses Wakatoshi, especially when he starts thinking about his current situation. How he lives on his own in his Osaka apartment and rarely goes out, save for being the sober driver for MSBY most weekends. He wonders if Wakatoshi goes out, and thinks that’s a stupid thing to think. Wakatoshi isn’t the going out type.

So, what? How many nights, Kiyoomi wonders, have they both been sitting alone in their respective cities? Probably too many to count. Maybe if either of them had less self-control it would be fewer. Fewer lonely nights.

Fewer nights spent staring at the city skyline, waiting for someone to need them.)

The familiar view looks exactly as Kiyoomi remembers it. Wakatoshi stops the car but leaves the engine running, letting the heat blow quietly while the radio drones underneath. 

“I know this place,” Kiyoomi says after a moment, the elephant in the room. “You took me here before.”

Wakatoshi leans back in his seat, hands in his lap. “Seven years ago.”

Kiyoomi watches the sunrise for a moment, the blues from earlier melting into shades of purple and rose behind the tree line. Inhales until it’s too much and he lets it out slowly. “Have you taken anyone else here?”

“No. Just myself.”

He says it more quietly than Kiyoomi expects. Like he’s sorry.

“Sometimes,’ Wakatoshi continues, “I find other spots. But this is my favorite, even if it- doesn’t always feel the same when I’m here.”

Kiyoomi asks, “Does it ever get lonely, on your own out here? Do you ever just feel like- there’s someone missing?”

“I think I’ve conditioned myself to loneliness.” Wakatoshi shrugs. “I’m so used to it now, I wouldn’t know what to do with not-loneliness if I ever had it. If I had it again.”

“Not-loneliness?”

Wakatoshi pauses. He shifts his hands in his lap, fingers fidgeting absentmindedly. “Company, Kiyoomi. Feeling like- there’s someone always beside me. Right beside me.”

(Maybe, Kiyoomi decides, he and Wakatoshi could need each other. 

Or, at one point they did. Not right now.)

“I think you have plenty of people beside you, Wakatoshi.”

“But-” Wakatoshi pauses again, sighing. “Kiyoomi, you’ve never been beside me. And- I want you to be.”

Kiyoomi, confused, still stares off at the sky ahead of him. “What do you mean?”

I- I think you’ve always been in front of me. It’s not even that you’re in front of me because you’re better; you’re in front because you don’t want me to see all of you.”

“Wakatoshi-” 

(Memories stir in Kiyoomi’s mind of training camps, of pushing his cot into the farthest corner of the room away from everyone else. Eating meals alone with Motoya across from him on the other side of the cafeteria table. 

Banter with Wakatoshi on opposite sides of the net, in the gym practicing serving and spiking drills. That was the extent of their friendship for so long- so much so that Kiyoomi’d hesitated to try the whole “dating” thing until Wakatoshi had known he’d be in Tokyo for a few years. Even then, it was weekends together when they had the chance. But Kiyoomi had liked Wakatoshi- a lot, he knows, he really did, but maybe he wasn’t the best at showing it, and-)

“You’ve never been vulnerable for me. For anyone. It’s- as soon as the net goes down between us a wall goes up in its place.”

Kiyoomi tears his eyes away from the sunrise and, finally, looks over at Wakatoshi. Wakatoshi, whose face is pink and whose eyes are soft, pointedly not looking at Kiyoomi. Wakatoshi, a sunrise all on his own. 

He continues. “And just- for once, I want you to feel important. It’s what I wanted seven years ago and it’s what I want now. I want you to feel like you can have attention on yourself and not shy away from it. Because you deserve it, Kiyoomi, and you’ve always deserved to be cared about. _I_ care about you.”

Numb all over. Kiyoomi’s breaths are shallow, high in his chest.

“I- maybe it was a mistake of mine to end things the way I did. But I never wanted to hold you back, and I still don’t. I don’t. I want you to- be assured in yourself, and be sure that you are-”

“-Loved.” Kiyoomi interrupts quietly, blinks as Wakatoshi’s eyes flick over to meet him. 

_“I love you.”_

_Wakatoshi, dropping Kiyoomi back off at his house before driving back to his own apartment._

_“I love you.”_

_Words kissed onto the top of Kiyoomi’s head._

_“I love you.”_

_The car door slamming and the license plate fading as it got darker and further away._

_“I love you.”_

_The kiss on top of his head._

_“I love you.”_

_Stargazing._

_“I love you.”_

_Referring to Wakatoshi as a friend again. Just friends._

Wakatoshi swallows. “Loved, but more than that, just happy.”

Kiyoomi’s nails press into his palms. “You love me.”

An apologetic smile, then, Wakatoshi turns to face Kiyoomi. “I’ve loved you all along.”

( _MSBY BLACK JACKALS NEXT SEASON ROSTER: NEW MEMBERS AND TRADES CONT. INSIDE_

Wakatoshi clicks on the article title over his morning breakfast, not expecting to see much out of the ordinary. It’s the time of year where most teams are posting their updated rosters in anticipation of the next season; Wakatoshi’s already skimmed a few over the past week or so, only recognizing a few names here and there. 

The MSBY roster is not different. He recognizes Koutarou Bokuto, Atsumu Miya-

Kiyoomi Sakusa. #15, outside hitter. 

Wakatoshi pauses. Reads it again. Again. Again.

His chest tightens each time, reading the number and the position and his name. The number and the position and the name that all belong to each other. That belong to Kiyoomi.

That Kiyoomi _earned_. Kiyoomi, who's now in Wakatoshi's division.

They'll play each other again soon enough.)

Kiyoomi’s throat, tight and knotted, barely lets him ask, “You loved me?”

Wakatoshi reaches his hands over to take Kiyoomi’s, thumbs massaging the crescents pressed into his palms. “I loved you and I love you. Right now.”

Lips pressed into a tight line, Kiyoomi knows if he tries to speak again all that will come out is nothing. Stupid babbling and crying, and the console between them is in the way and he thinks his hands are shaking and- and, panicked, he scans Wakatoshi’s face. And Kiyoomi watches his eyes, and his cheeks, and he knows Wakatoshi is nervous. They’re both nervous.

Deep breaths. In through his nose, out through his nose. They’re both nervous. Wakatoshi is nervous. It’s okay.

“Kiyoomi?” Wakatoshi asks gently. “Is everything okay?”

Kiyoomi nods tightly. Tries to open his mouth and all he does is gasp, shoulders shaking where they want to curl in on him. How he always curls, makes himself small when he feels like this. Laid-open.

But- it’s Wakatoshi, Kiyoomi remembers. Wakatoshi sitting across from him in the car and Wakatoshi holding his hands and Wakatoshi whose face glows soft, peach and pink and orange in the sunrise. Who took him out here and who wants him and who loves him. And has always loved him.

Wakatoshi who wants Kiyoomi. Who loves him. 

Lucky Kiyoomi.

“I love you, ‘toshi.”

Wakatoshi’s hands grip his just a little harder, enough to be noticed. And his eyes widen a touch, and he smiles. “Love you, too.”

Kiyoomi sniffles. “Love you forever.”

“Love you forever,” Wakatoshi repeats, enamored.

_Endearing_ , Kiyoomi thinks. Still endearing after seven years. Endearing the way Wakatoshi’s smiling, lips curled up at the edges. His cheeks dimpled and boyish. Endearing how he’s gone softer, gentler with how life has treated him. 

And endearing how he holds Kiyoomi, who climbs over the center console to kiss him, both of them grinning and teary-eyed the whole time. His hand on Kiyoomi’s waist and the other on his jaw, steadying them both as they kiss, catch their breath, kiss, repeat.

Kiyoomi leans back as much as he can, breathless, and laughs softly when he looks at Wakatoshi again. Pressing their foreheads together, “It feels like we’re teenagers again. Making out whenever we found a chance to.”

“Hm,” Wakatoshi says, gazing at Kiyoomi. “We do have a lot of time to make up for. Not- as teenagers, but in general.” He looks behind Kiyoomi to check the time on the dashboard, and Kiyoomi turns, too, to look.

“Almost 7:00,” Kiyoomi says. He glances at Wakatoshi. “You should- get back for your flight.”

_Leaving. He’s leaving again. Leaving you again. Leaving._

Wakatoshi nods once, and kisses Kiyoomi one more time. A peck on the lips, a _don’t forget this. Don’t forget how you feel right now._ And he eases Kiyoomi back into the passenger seat, hands never leaving him until he can tell Kiyoomi is settled.

Keys turned in the ignition. Hands on the wheel, backing them out of the road and the farm and the last little moment of privacy they’ll get for three months.

Kiyoomi’s chest hollows, panicky. Three months of an ocean between them and surviving off of video calls and texts from different time zones. Cooped up in his apartment or his parent’s house between working out and strict mealtimes, Wakatoshi in California with his father and the beach for company. Will he even survive a _week_ , much less a _month_ -

“Come with me.”

-alone without Wakatoshi- “What?”

Wakatoshi keeps driving, but he reaches a steady hand over to rest on Kiyoomi’s thigh. Palm up, inviting. “Come with me.” Palm down, fingers ghosting over the fabric of Kiyoomi’s sweatpants. “Pick up a flight later today. Or tomorrow. Whenever.”

Kiyoomi stutters, “I start training tomorrow. Here. My trainer’s expecting me.”

“So, train with me. You’re not bound to anything, really, not for three months.”

“I can’t just leave-”

“Then think about it.” Wakatoshi squeezes the hand on his thigh gently. “Come visit, at least.”

Kiyoomi’s breath slows, eyes locked on Wakatoshi’s hand. He blinks, then slides his hand underneath to hold it. Pulls it up close, kisses the back of Wakatoshi’s hand, sets it back down. “Okay,” Kiyoomi says. “I’ll ask.”

(Kiyoomi will learn within the next three months that he 1) does like the beach as long as he is under an umbrella, 2) is intimidated by Wakatoshi’s father until he realizes who Wakatoshi gets all of his charm and attentiveness from, and 3) did not expect to see Iwaizumi-san when Wakatoshi told Kiyoomi they were meeting someone for lunch. 

Well, he supposes, there is a caveat for the beach-umbrella rule. He does not mind the beach sans umbrella when it’s just him and Wakatoshi at sunrise before their morning workouts, a towel underneath them and ocean spray on their feet. It reminds him of- Tokyo, and their spot. And how Wakatoshi, close and up against his side, makes the whole rest of the world seem small.)

“Okay,” Wakatoshi responds, just as Kiyoomi watches Tokyo come back into view. “I think you’ll like it there.”

“I hope so,” Kiyoomi says, laughing a little. “I’ve only let Shouyou drag me to a beach one time.”

Wakatoshi chuckles, taking the road back to Kiyoomi’s apartment. Slow as he can, passing the familiar buildings one more time. Kiyoomi tries very hard not to think about what he’s going to do as soon as he gets home, which is probably text Wakatoshi that he’s inside and safe and then text Wakatoshi asking him to tell him as soon as his flight leaves and when he thinks he’s going to land and what time it will be in California. And when can Kiyoomi call and when can he see Wakatoshi’s face again, and how should he ask his trainer and dietician for permission to fly to California? 

So, Kiyoomi doesn’t think about that. Instead, he clutches Wakatoshi’s hand and tries to memorize how it feels; he watches the sky lighten and thinks how he can let sunrises be his own reminder of his partner and best love.

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> my [twitter](http://twitter.com/ushisakuu) :3


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